Young doctors (finally) want to work in outpatient clinics: how did the miracle happen for the 2025 MIR exam?

The allocation of places for Specialized Healthcare Training ( FSE ) has come to an end, and with it a big surprise: every single one of the 11,943 vacancies has been filled . The astonishment came because, as a result, there were no vacancies left in either the MIR (Resident Internship) or Family and Community Medicine (FCM). The specialty was not going through its best moments, with at least 100 unfilled places in each of the last three editions.

But how did we go from one point to the other in just 12 months? Experts point to two changes that the Ministry of Health has incorporated in this edition.

This is how Pilar Rodríguez Ledo , president of the Spanish Society of General and Family Physicians ( SEMG ), explains it: "We believe that the two main changes that have made it possible to fill these positions are positive, namely the selection process with real-time information, which is only guaranteed today with in-person selection [of places] , and the elimination of the cut-off mark ." In other words, these two measures are, in her opinion, the reason for this change. Therefore, she gives a "partially" positive assessment of the results.

The department headed by Mónica García was truly pleased. A statement stated that the result reflects "the impact of the improvements implemented in training planning and incentive policies" to attract future specialists to a specialty that is described as "key" in the public healthcare system.

Despite the good news, the SEMG (Spanish Medical Association of Medical Doctors) emphasizes that this does not solve the real problem with the specialty . Therefore, Rodríguez Ledo insists that action must be taken "before and after" the MIR (Member of the Medical Internship) selection . "We must not forget that at university, students still lack knowledge of family medicine, and you cannot choose something you don't know," he argues.

The second issue the expert focuses on is the conditions of performance , which, in her opinion, also need to be changed. "The candidates themselves say this when they choose the first positions. I don't see comments that speak of vocation, but rather that they don't have on-call shifts , that they have a better quality of life , that they have less healthcare burden , that they have the possibility, once they graduate, of combining it with private work... If those are the main reasons for choosing, the ones chosen in the end don't fulfill those reasons," she explains. These are the reasons that lead her to think we need to learn from what those candidates who choose first say in order to know what needs to be done to make the final specialties chosen "desirable."

At this point, the specialist insists on the need to commit to "real" family medicine , which implies institutional, academic, and social recognition, so that applicants who are applying for a position "can do so without penalizing their personal lives." In the end, although vocation is important, it doesn't justify everything, she maintains.

Furthermore, there's another issue to consider: could the fact that all the places are filled lead to a higher number of dropouts during the residency ? The physician comments that "it can always happen," that it's something that happens every year, and the more available there is, the greater the chance of it happening.

This situation, where the entire quota is filled, contrasts with what has occurred in recent years . In 2022, 218 family positions remained vacant ; in 2023, the number dropped to 131, before rising again to 246 in 2024, after an extraordinary call was issued to try to fill 459 vacancies in MFyC , in addition to several in occupational medicine and preventive medicine and public health. It should also be noted that this is the specialty with the most vacancies of all , with 2,508 in total.

Other changes incorporated by Health

In addition to the two changes mentioned above, the Ministry of Health agreed to increase the number of existing vacancies. In Medicine, the overall increase was 3% , reaching 9,007 positions; notable cases include child and adolescent psychiatry (up 60% compared to the previous call); forensic medicine (up 42%); oral and maxillofacial surgery (up 14%), and family surgery (up 1).

In total, 15,114 people were admitted to the MIR exam , of which 13,711 took the test. Of this number, 98.86% achieved a score higher than 0. The first future specialist to choose a family was the candidate with order number 24 in Seville . Furthermore, as detailed on the FSE website, the last ten MIR spots are concentrated in Lugo and in this same medical branch.